With the increasing sophistication of office equipment, such as digital copiers, printers, facsimiles and scanners, as well as printers which combine many of these functions, individual machines (hereinafter described generically as “printers”) become more and more software intensive. Much of the functionality associated with a particular printer dwells in the software of the printer, and particular functionalities of a printer can be set, and thus made to cooperate with a larger network, by providing selected values for what can be called the “settings” of the printer. Examples of “printer settings” currently used in practical applications include values relating to connectivity, e-mail, authentication, and others which will be discussed below.
A system administrator responsible for a large population of printers would like to establish the desired settings for various of the machines in an efficient manner. Typically, each printer on a network has associated therewith its own IP address and webpage, and the settings for the printer can be viewed and altered through the webpage. To manage a large number of printers in this way would require the administrator to access each webpage and manually check and change the settings on each page.
The present disclosure relates to a way of managing printer settings for a large number of printers.